On March 14th, Judge Audrey Fleissig, a St. Louis Federal district court judge, struck down portions of Missouri law protecting the conscience rights of those objecting to paying for contraceptive coverage and abortion drugs in their health plans.
Her order attacks the conscience rights and religious liberty of all Missouri citizens, including those that worked to pass SB 749 and that courageously overrode Governor Jay Nixon's veto in September 2012.
Now is the time for Attorney General Koster to show courage and leadership in protecting the religious liberty of all Missourians. Judge Fleissig's order needs to be appealed. Will he step up and do it? He needs to hear from you today! 
Contact Attorney General Koster and ask him to appeal this overreaching judicial order:
(573) 751-3321
attorney.general@ago.mo.gov
Forward this information to friends and family members.
The Message/Talking points:

• Please appeal Judge Fleissig's order
• Her order overreaches and will effectively violate the religious liberty of Missouri citizens and employers more than the HHS mandate
• Other federal courts have protected the conscience rights of employers and her order is inconsistent with those orders.

(read full article)

During consideration of the budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 8), the National Right to Life Committee sent a letter to senators asking them to support these pro-life amendments and said it intends to include the votes in its scorecard of key pro-life votes of the 113th Congress that it sends to millions of pro-life Americans.
From the letter to senators, that LifeNews received late Thursday.
The amendments are:
– Amendment No. 252 by Senator Lee, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
– Amendment No. 292 by Senator Rubio, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact S. 369, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). 

(read more for details)

On the third anniversary of the passage of President Obama’s controversial pro-abortion health care bill, Democrats defeated an amendment to repeal Obamacare.
Sen Ted Cruz, a pro-life Republican from Texas, filed an amendment to the budget bill to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to provide for the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 and to encourage patient-centered reforms to improve health outcomes and reduce health care costs.
But Democrats balked and defeated the measure 54-45, with Republicans voting for the amendment and Democrats in opposition.
(read more)

A leading pro-life organization is pushing an amendment sponsored by pro-life Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, that would force a vote in the Senate to de-fund Obamacare, the health care law that contains abortion funding and rationing concerns.
     As LifeNews reported, Cruz said this week he would us any procedural means available to him to have the Senate vote on his amendment.
     Now, the  National Right to Life Committee has written members of the Senate pushing for adoption of the Cruz amendment.
     “The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) urges you to vote in favor of the amendment that Senator Cruz intends to offer to the continuing resolution (H.R. 933), to block funding for the Obama health care law, and intends to include the roll call in our scorecard of key right-to-life roll calls of the 113th Congress,” the group writes senators in a letter LifeNews obtained.
   “NRLC vigorously opposed enactment of the Obamacare law in 2009-2010, because of its multiple provisions authorizing federal subsidies for abortion insurance, multiple provisions allowing abortion-expansive federal mandates, and multiple provisions that will result in involuntary denial of life-saving medical treatment by placing unacceptable limits on the right of vulnerable Americans to use their own money, if they choose, to obtain both health care and health insurance less likely to deny needed health care,” the pro-life group explains. “More detailed discussion of the abortion-expanding provisions of Obamacare can be found in NRLC’s 2011 testimony in support of the Protect Life Act (H.R. 358):
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf”

(read more)

The Missouri House third read and passed HCS HB 457, which contains broad conscience clause protections that specify that anyone providing or participating in a medical procedure or research cannot be required to participate or provide services that violates his or her religious, moral, or ethical principles that are adherent to a sincere and meaningful belief in God or in relation to a supreme being.
"Because of the attack on our religious institutions and business leaders who because of their faith choose not to participate in destroying innocent human life this is a real and pressing issue for our pro-life medical professionals," said Pam Fichter, President of Missouri Right to Life.
     Those in the medical and research fields that labor every day to save lives should not be forced to take lives against their religious and moral beliefs. This bill would protect them from negative repercussions by their employers."
     "Missouri Right to Life thanks the members of all the Missouri House who supported this important legislation," said Fichter.
     HCS HB 457 passed the House by a veto proof bi-partisan vote of 116 to 41. HCS HB 457 now moves to the Senate for consideration.

Some stories are so crazy you’d think they originated from a television script instead of from reality. That’s the case with Crystal Kelley, the Connecticut surrogate mom who fled the state to save the child growing inside her.
As CNN reports, Kelley met with a Connecticut couple who had three children and desperately wanted a fourth. The couple seemed attentive and loving, so Kelley agreed to carry their child. On October 8, 2011, frozen embryos were deposited into Kelley’s uterus. Less than two weeks later, tests showed that one of the embryos had taken. Kelley was pregnant, and the couple was overjoyed.
When Kelley was five months pregnant, a routine ultrasound test revealed some alarming news. The baby Kelley was carrying had a complex heart abnormality, a cleft palate, and a cyst in the brain. The doctors told Kelley that the baby would need multiple heart surgeries and have only a 25% chance at a “normal” life.
Soon Kelley’s midwife received a letter from doctors working with the parents. In it, the parents expressed their thoughts on the child’s condition and the action that should be taken. “Given the ultrasound findings, [the parents] feel that the interventions required to manage [the baby's medical problems] are overwhelming for an infant, and that it is a more humane option to consider pregnancy termination.”
The previously wanted and anticipated child was now sentenced to death. Kelley declared that she was opposed to termination and wanted to give the child a chance. Then the story gets even crazier: the parents made Kelley an offer of $10,000 to abort the child.
(read more)

A new bill members of Congress have introduced may be the last chance for Congress to take action to mitigate the conscience problems associated with President Barack Obama’s HHS mandate.
Today, members of Congress, with the backing of major pro-life groups, are introducing a new major bill to stop the Obama administration’s assault on pro-life religious freedom via the HHS mandate.
Congressmen Diane Black (R-TN), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), and John Fleming, M.D. (R-LA), are behind the introduction of the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (HCCRA) that would protect Americans’ First Amendment rights and would stop the Obama Administration’s HHS mandate from forcing religious groups to pay for drugs that may cause abortions in their employee health care plans.
The bill not only covers the mandate but also provides protection for medical professionals who refuse to be involved with the performance of abortions. The HCCRA also protects institutions and individuals from forced or coerced participation in abortion, they said.**Pro-life advocates need to contact their members of U.S. Congress to support the bill and to personally ask House Leadership (Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy) to insert conscience protection legislation into the final FY2013 “CR.”
(read more)

Please contact your Missouri legislators and ask them to support the following pro-life bills:
SB 175, HB 400, HB 177  (regulating abortion inducing      drugs, banning web-cam abortions)
HB 386  (banning sex selection abortions)
SB 84, HB 457  (Conscience protection for medical personnel)
SB 111, SB 126, HB 378  (protecting pharmacy owners from being forced to provide abortion inducing drugs)
SB 20, SB 15, HB 87, HB 288  (extending and protecting Pregnancy Resource Center tax credits)
SB 50, HB 31  (protection of rights of Alternative-to-Abortion agencies)
HB 298  (required ultrasound 24 hours prior to abortion)
HB 5  (continued funding for Alternatives-to-Abortion)

*Please email or call your MO legislators to ask them to support these bills. (SB= senate bill and HB= house bill)
You can find your MO senator's info at: http://www.senate.mo.gov/
You can find your MO representative's info at:  http://www.house.mo.gov/
There is a legislator look-up at these links for those who are not sure who their legislator is.